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India Program
Project
Overview
In 1998, ELI launched its India
Program to promote environmental law, policy, and management in India. The
Institute works in conjunction with the government, NGOs, industry, and
academic institutions to strengthen the legal, policy, and institutional
infrastructure for sustainable development, environmental protection, and
natural resource conservation in India. ELI has worked with its partners to
build the capacity of the judiciary and enforcement agencies, to build the
capacity of civil society to participate in environmental decision making, to
build the capacity of industry to comply with environmental law, and to
strengthen implementation of environmental law.
ELI’s India Program team consists
of Senior Attorney John Pendergrass and Visiting Scholar Usha Wright.
Factory
Manager Compliance Training
Since 2003, ELI has worked with
industry, state pollution control boards, NGOs, and academia to build the
capacity of India’s private sector to comply with environmental law.
Supported by the GE Foundation and by USAID, and working with Environmental
Management and Policy Research Institute (EMPRI) of Bangalore and the
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), ELI developed
two courses for managers of small and medium sized enterprises on how to
comply with environmental law. FICCI and ELI delivered a pilot workshop to
managers of electroplating facilities clustered in Mathura in northern India.
Contemporaneously, EMPRI and ELI
delivered a pilot workshop in Bangalore for a diverse audience of managers of
small and medium sized enterprises. In addition to segments on India’s water,
air, hazardous waste, and other substantive laws, the course covered why it
is beneficial to industry to comply with environmental law. Faculty included
senior officials of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, Professor MK
Ramesh, experts from NGOs and industry, and ELI Senior Attorney John
Pendergrass. ELI and EMPRI prepared a Pocket Guide to Environmental
Compliance, which provided information on the environmental rules applicable
to industry. The Bangalore workshop included a site visit to a model facility
to observe good environmental management in practice. A follow up session
three months later demonstrated the value of the training as the majority of
participants described specific improvements to environmental performance at
their facilities.
In 2008, with additional support
from several multinational corporations in India, ELI worked with academic
institutions and state pollution control boards in Gujarat and Karnataka to
expand the coverage of the course to include segments on occupational health
and safety and product stewardship and to involve managers from staff of
suppliers. The courses were hosted by Indus Institute of Technology and
Engineering in Ahmedabad and the National Law School of India University
(NLS) in Bangalore, with the respective state pollution control boards as
additional sponsors and speakers. In Ahmedabad, the course was keynoted by
India’s retired Chief Justice PN Bhagwati, author of several seminal
decisions by the Indian Supreme Court on environmental rights. ELI and its
academic, industry, and state pollution control board partners repeated the
course in Bangalore in November 2009 and in Ahmedabad and Bangalore in
January 2011.
Building
the Capacity of Judges to Enforce Environmental Law
India’s Supreme Court has been a
leader in improving access to courts for poor and disenfranchised citizens,
remedying pollution, and providing relief for damage claims in environmental
cases, but trial courts have not followed this lead. Beginning in 1999, ELI
collaborated with state High Courts, judicial academies, and NGOs to build
the capacity of trial court judges to implement environmental law. ELI
convened, with NLS, a two-day planning meeting of leading jurists from
Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala to discuss the needs for
educational programs for judges on environmental law and specific topics to
be covered. The judges included some of the leading green bench judges at the
time as well as those active in judicial education generally. As a result of
this workshop the Bombay High Court asked ELI to organize a workshop for
judges in Maharashtra. ELI and the Lawyers Collective delivered the first
such workshop on environmental law for High Court and trial judges from
Maharashtra in Mumbai in 2000.
ELI was asked by Center for
Advancement in Environmental Law to assist it in delivering a course for
trial court judges from Orissa. The workshop for fifty trial court judges was
held in Bhubaneswar, Orissa in 2002, with ELI Senior Attorney John
Pendergrass as a featured speaker on enforcement, access to information, and
access to justice. Also in 2002, ELI partnered with the Judicial Academy of
Karnataka, the High Court of Karnataka, and Environment Support Group, an NGO
in Bangalore, to hold a workshop for trial court judges from Karnataka. The
following year, in partnership with the Centre for Environmental Education -
Lucknow and the Judicial Training and Research Institute (JTRI), ELI
conducted a program for thirty trial judges from Uttar Pradesh. The workshop
was designed so that the faculty of the JTRI would be capable of providing similar
training in the future. Several judges noted that the program had opened
their eyes to a new area of the law.
Building
the Capacity of Enforcement Officers to Litigate Environmental Cases
During 2002, ELI worked with the
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Central Pollution Control
Board to develop a workshop to build the capacity of enforcement officials of
the central and state pollution control boards (SPCBs) to effectively
litigate enforcement cases. The workshop included exercises designed to allow
the participants to practice skills learned during the program, such as
drafting affidavits and other legal documents essential to litigating
enforcement cases. Enforcement staff from twelve SPCBs participated in the
program along with staff from the legal cell of the CPCB.
Building
Capacity of the Public to Participate in Environmental Decision-Making
Public participation is a critical
element of environmental governance and is key to India’s sustainable
development and conservation efforts. Including citizens’ voices in
decision-making promotes governmental accountability and increases the
likelihood that decisions will take into account the concerns of those
directly affected by them. Effective public participation requires the recognition
of environmental rights and a citizen cause of action, standing before the
courts, clear environmental standards, access to information, genuine
opportunities for participation and clearly defined procedures for such
participation, and an independent and well-informed judiciary. ELI, through
its judicial training programs and through workshops and study tours for NGO
activists and environmental lawyers, has worked to foster the conditions in
India in which public participation can thrive. ELI held its first study tour
for environmental lawyers and activists in 1998. This tour included a week in
Washington focusing on federal environmental programs, federalism, and civil
society’s involvement in national environmental issues. A second week
included participation in the annual meeting of environmental activists in
Eugene, Oregon, where the study tour participants joined counterparts from
all over the world to discuss citizen activism in environmental issues. A
second study tour following a similar model was held in 2003 and included
judges as well as lawyers and representatives of civil society.
In 1999, ELI and its local
partner, the Center for Science and the Environment (CSE), held a two-day NGO
Workshop on Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making in New
Delhi to identify strategies for more effective involvement of civil society
in environment and development decisions in India. More than forty public
interest lawyers, NGO representatives, and journalists participated in this
workshop. Workshop participants exchanged ideas on Access to Justice, the
Right to Information, the Right to Natural Resources, and Civil Society
Interventions.
Assessment
of State Implementation of Environmental Law (1999)
ELI, in conjunction with local
partners TERI, the Center for Symbiosis of Technology, Environment, and
Management (STEM), and the C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre (CPREEC)
developed detailed case studies on the implementation of environmental law at
the state level. These studies analyzed Karnataka’s efforts under the 1989
Hazardous Waste Rules, the Environmental Audit Statement requirement in Tamil
Nadu, and implementation of Supreme Court-ordered air pollution measures for
foundries in West Bengal. Each of these studies diagnosed implementation
problems at the local level, and also provided recommendations for improving
the effectiveness of implementation of the law.
Related
Conferences, Seminars and Workshops
Related
Publications
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Monday, June 11, 2012
ELI launched its India Program to promote environmental law, policy, and management i
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